


I Don't Hate You

by DepravedBlink



Category: Dreamcatcher (Korea Band)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Hi Bora!, Pre-Relationship, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-18 11:56:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21610528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DepravedBlink/pseuds/DepravedBlink
Summary: Then everything went awkward, because bathing meant naked, obviously, and on the List of Places Bora Would Find Herself at 2:15 a.m., “in the bathroom with sick naked Gahyeon” was around #4,368,212.Or, alternatively, Kim Bora doesn't hate Lee Gahyeon. Not even a little bit, not even at all.
Relationships: Kim Bora | SuA/Lee Gahyeon, Kim Minji | JiU/Kim Yoohyeon
Comments: 10
Kudos: 167
Collections: Dreamcatcher fanfics





	I Don't Hate You

**Author's Note:**

> Something about Bora and Gahyeon's dynamic just makes me love the idea of them together. Hope y'all enjoy.

Bora liked to call herself an equal opportunity hater. She hated all of them for various reasons, but it was all equal. No more, no less than any other person.

Minji, for instance. Bora hated Minji because she was an endless optimist, and Bora’s attitude meandered between cautiously hopeful and depressingly fatalistic. Either the world wasn’t going to end just yet, or the world had already gone to shit and she just needed to hold on for the ride down. Minji, however, believed that the trajectory was always up, and Bora hated how even on the worst of days Minji was always pretty, with her smile crinkling the corners of her eyes even as she cried. It was aggravating, really.

And then there was Siyeon. Bora couldn’t actually hate that much about Siyeon, because they were always together and if there was anyone she would consider her closest friend, it would be Siyeon. Bora hated the fact that most of the time, Siyeon was her exact opposite. Where Bora liked to hop around stage and scream to her heart’s content, Siyeon was usually calm. Bora hated the way that calm sometimes melted into her and made her feel safe and protected.

Bora hated Handong’s shyness more than anything. Minx had scarcely been put out of its misery when Handong showed up, all Gucci bags and sharp eyes that took in everything like it was a new, terrifying adventure. Bora had resented her, because she wasn’t Korean, because she wasn’t Minx, because she wasn’t wild and chaotic and preferred to just smile affectionately at them when they got too crazy. And now Bora hated how cute she looked with double orange buns on top of her head and the way she would cast her eyes down whenever someone complimented her. Ugh, disgusting.

Yoohyeon was dedicated to the point of insanity, Bora had conceded maybe a day or two after she’d met the trainee, back in the days when they were young and stupid and stardom was going to happen any time now. Yoohyeon was always practicing before a show, either pressed up against a wall or into a corner like she was a petulant child in trouble. Bora trained hard but Yoohyeon trained harder, and it was ridiculous.

There wasn’t much Bora hated about Dami, unless that godforsaken stick counted. More than once Bora would watch the way it twirled around in relaxed, nimble fingers and she thought about shoving it where the sun didn’t shine. It seemed unreal how the person who was once expected to be the aegyo-filled hyperactive maknae was now one of the most elegant, quiet gentlewomen ever to grace a k-pop stage. Bora was sick of it, really.

She liked to think that she hated bits and pieces of all of her fellow members equally. But _god_ , if Lee Gahyeon wasn’t testing that theory to its limit.

If Bora could describe her hate for Gahyeon in one word, it would be _loud_. Which was probably a self-fulfilling prophecy because anytime an interviewer asked which were the loudest members, inevitably all of the pointing would be at both Gahyeon _and_ Bora. But Gahyeon doesn’t talk so much as scream half the time, reaching decibels that Bora would’ve never thought possible. She hated that damn spongebob laugh, too, because more often than not it was directed at her, at her “ramen hair,” or anything else that Gahyeon found funny – which was everything.

Gahyeon was nearly always smiling, except when she cried on stage and Bora wasn’t sure which of the two she preferred, because somehow Gahyeon was pretty whether she laughed _or_ cried, and that should’ve been written in their contract as against the rules. Just as she’d initially thought with Handong, Bora didn’t think _Gahyeon_ should’ve been written into their contract. Because Minx had been fine with five. They’d _sucked_ , but they’d been fine. Then Handong and Gahyeon came along and Bora had had to adjust to their dynamic being seven, and she’d never been all that comfortable with change. Handong was easier, because she was quiet. Gahyeon had burst in like the sugary cream filling in chocolate, and it hurt Bora’s teeth. Grated on her nerves. Nobody’s smile should’ve been that bright; nobody should have been that cute with silly noises and finger hearts and big brown eyes that were always comically wide at the world. They’re adults and Bora couldn’t help but sneer at the fact that Gahyeon was comfortable sat on the floor building a restaurant out of Lego. Baby, in every sense of the word. Loud, annoying, a nuisance.

(Bora had checked to make sure all the Lego pieces were in the box when Gahyeon had had to take the restaurant down before their performance. The last thing she wanted to hear was Gahyeon whining about it.)

Bora had been laying in her bed thinking about how much she hated Gahyeon and the fact that she’d been really quiet for the last day or so, when she first heard the sniffle.

A sniffle, followed by a cough, followed by a sneeze.

Ah, Bora thought to herself. Flu season. Someone was unlucky.

She was glad it wasn’t her. And glad that Minji would get up to check on whoever it was, because she was their mother and Bora actually kind of hated how caring she was, of all of them. Minji was always the one to putter around fixing tea or coffee, straightening up the dorm, making sure they’d all eaten enough and were going to bed early because they had a lot of work to do the next day.

No way would Bora be able to do that, so she was grudgingly thankful to their leader for always taking one for the team. She rolled over with her face to the wall and closed her eyes.

The next cough sounded rough and painful, as if it were coming deep from the owner’s chest and was hurting their throat. It also sounded stilted, as if whoever was coughing was trying to keep it quiet for fear of waking the others. That was nice of them, Bora thought, throwing back the blanket and climbing out of bed.

Too bad she was already awake.

The rest of the bedroom doors were closed, and the sniffling punctuated by the now-frequent coughing and occasional sneeze seemed to be coming from the living room. Bora considered barging in on Minji and making her go do the mom-thing, but if there was something else Bora hated about Minji it was her ability to work herself no matter how bone-tired she was, and Bora didn’t want to deal with that when it was – she checked her watch – two in the morning.

She hated them all, every single one of them.

But still Bora crept forward, both because she didn’t want to catch whatever it was the other person had, and she also didn’t want to startle the person by just randomly popping up. Not that the sick girl would’ve noticed; Bora could see in the dim light casting through the partially closed blinds that there was a lump on the sofa, buried under blankets but still shivering like a leaf in autumn wind.

Bora reached out and tugged at the blanket until it revealed its contents – one Lee Gahyeon, blearily staring up at Bora with eyes that didn’t really _see_ her, and Bora had the sudden thought of, _It figures that being sick is the only thing that would make you quiet_.

Gahyeon’s face was flushed red, making her splotchy cheeks look even chubbier, and Bora was disgusted at the idea that it somehow made Gahyeon even cuter. Pretty even when sick, wasn’t that against some South Korean code somewhere? Bora touched one of those cheeks, her fingers burning at the fever she found there.

“Gahyeon,” she said at last, squatting down into a kneeling position in front of the couch. “You’re sick.”

Gahyeon’s answer was another cough, more like a hack that reached down to the depth of her lungs and Bora winced. “I’m okay,” she managed, her voice sounding gravely with both the sick and the lie.

“You certainly sound okay.” Bora unwound the blankets despite Gahyeon’s whine of protest. If she was feverish the blankets wouldn’t help, Bora knew. “How long have you been like this?”

A day or two, she surmised. It was as if Gahyeon had just suddenly gone mute, but Bora had only noticed because the other girl was always so damn loud, and not because she missed her rapid-fire way of talking or the laugh that made her eyes squish up and shine.

Gahyeon sneezed and Bora leaned out of the way of it, but being this close to Gahyeon and brushing her sweaty hair out of her face was going to doom her anyway.

“Wednesday?” she offered, and Bora sighed.

“Gahyeon-ah, why didn’t you say anything?”

“We have work to do,” Gahyeon pouted, her brown eyes filling with tears.

Hm, Bora thought. Add Gahyeon’s work ethic to the list of things she hated about her.

“You can’t do work if you’re sick, and if you make the rest of us sick none of us can do work,” she pointed out.

Gahyeon folded into herself, wrapping pink-pajamaed arms around herself and hugging tightly. She coughed again.

“M’sorry.”

“Mm.” Bora left Gahyeon where she lay on the couch.

… but only so she could go into the kitchen and root around in the drawers for medicine. She hated Gahyeon, but she didn’t hate her enough to leave her alone, sick and ashamed. Bora wasn’t _that_ heartless. She found some cold tablets which would have to do until the morning when Bora could talk to one of the managers and have Gahyeon _actually_ looked at and treated for whatever it was. She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge on the way back to the living room.

“Here.” Bora held out the tablets and the water, squatting down in front of Gahyeon again. “Take these. I’ll make some tea after you finish the water. You can’t get dehydrated, and the tea will help your throat.”

Gahyeon downed the tablets with a pained expression; Bora frowned a little. A sore throat was the worst, they all knew from experience. She hated that Gahyeon was sick, had been sick for at least two days without telling any of them. She hated that none of them had even noticed until this point.

“You don’t have to stay with me, unnie,” Gahyeon said, looking as if she wanted anything but for Bora to leave. “I’ll be all right.”

“Yeah you will,” Bora affirmed. “Once you get that water and that tea. Then you’ll have a bath. We have to bring that fever down.”

“Don’t wanna.”

Ugh. Bora fucking _hated_ that pout because now it meant she’d have to move the earth just to make Gahyeon feel better. Damn it.

“Yeah well, you don’t have a choice in the matter. I’m already risking it trying to help you, so that’s probably two of us who are going to be sick because you tried to be a martyr.”

Gahyeon looked away and Bora dug at her face and forehead with her fingertips; how did this kid always manage to give her a migraine? She always _wanted_ to say the right thing yet put Gahyeon in front of her and Bora inevitably became a flustered idiot. It was a habit.

“I can do it myself,” Gahyeon said. “Or get Minji to help. I know you’d rather it be her than you.”

Okay, Gahyeon was more perceptive than Bora would’ve have ever given her credit. It didn’t mean that the words hurt any less, the idea that _Gahyeon_ would rather it be Minji helping than Bora. She was picking at the blanket that had now pooled around her waist, not looking at Bora, and Bora was more saddened than annoyed.

“Drink your water, _aga_ ,” she said softly. She reached up from her kneeling position and ran her fingers through Gahyeon’s fever-dampened hair. “You’ll feel better soon.”

Minji chose that moment to actually come to the rescue, peeking around the corner into the living room with a sleepy, yet worried expression. “What’s going on?”

Bora tipped her head in Gahyeon’s direction. “Baby’s sick. I’ve got it, though.”

It would’ve been so easy to just go back to bed. Go back to bed and not worry if Gahyeon’s throat hurt or if her stomach was bothering too. If she was staying hydrated, if the fever had come down. If she felt comforted.

Minji stared at Bora for a long moment, before something like a smirk ghosted across her lips. Bora would have to ask her about that later. Tomorrow, maybe, once Gahyeon had gotten enough rest.

“You sure?”

Bora looked at Gahyeon. “Unless you’d rather Minji stay.”

At least if she went back to bed she could say she’d given Gahyeon the out and she had made her choice. Her chest didn’t feel tight at all with the notion.

Gahyeon bit her lip and looked up at Bora and Minji through her eyelashes. “You can go back to sleep, JiU-unnie,” she said. “I’ll be all right.”

“Okay.” The agreement fell too fast from Minji’s lips and Bora crooked an eyebrow at her; Minji only shrugged in response, that weird half-sad, half-smirk expression still on her face. She leaned down to kiss the top of Gahyeon’s head.

“There’s leftover soup in the refrigerator if you want to warm that up. It might help her throat.”

“Go to bed, mom, you’re pissing me off.”

Minji only rolled her eyes as she escaped back down the hall.

Bora looked back at Gahyeon to see her rolling the empty water bottle between her hands, and she nodded satisfied. “Do you want the tea first, or after your bath?”

Gahyeon’s lips seemed to be frozen turned down at the corners, and Bora hated that. Her fingers itched to poke at them to make them reverse direction, but she figured that would be a bad idea in Gahyeon’s current state.

“Do I have to?”

“No,” Bora said matter-of-factly. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. But you have a fever, and a cool bath will make you feel better. So will being in clean pajamas.”

Gahyeon made a tiny “hmph” noise and Bora grinned. That was a first battle won, then.

“Come on.” She reached down and took Gahyeon’s hand, trying to tamp down the spike of worry when she felt how hot it was. “I’ll run the water for you then I can brew the tea while you’re bathing.”

“No!” Gahyeon clapped her hand over her mouth, realizing how loud she was. She and Bora paused for a second, not breathing. But the rest of the dorm was silent, and they breathed out in unison.

“Eh?” Bora asked.

“I’m sick. I can’t bathe myself, I need you to help.”

_Oh, my god,_ Bora groaned inwardly. Someone was going to be murdered that night and Bora was pretty sure it was going to be Gahyeon. Which probably wasn’t fair but hey, at least she wouldn’t be sick anymore, right? But she was looking at Bora with eyes that knew full well what she was doing, and even though Bora hated her, she sighed in defeat anyway.

“If you wanted me to see you naked you could’ve just asked, you know.”

Ah, now, maybe the one that was going to die was Bora herself. She wouldn’t mind if the floor opened up and swallowed her.

Gahyeon opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, but mercifully she snapped it back shut, instead just giving Bora A Look that she knew she’d have to answer later. Not now though. Bora slid her arm around Gahyeon’s waist and led her to the bathroom.

“Sit,” she pointed to the toilet and grinned in triumph when the Dreamcatcher maknae did exactly as she was told. She could’ve been the leader, Bora told herself, but she isn’t actually bitter. She loved the way Minji took control of them, wrangling them all as if they were a gang of wiggly puppies trying to break out of a pen. (Although that description did fit Yoohyeon, Bora was sure.) Bora might’ve done things differently, mainly her Minx-era mushroom head, but now she was content just to let Minji call the shots.

But it was nice to know that Gahyeon also deferred to her, at least when she was sick.

Bora turned on the water and ran her hand under until she was satisfied the temperature wouldn’t send Gahyeon into shock, then stoppered the tub. Then everything went awkward, because bathing meant naked, obviously, and on the List of Places Bora Would Find Herself at 2:15 a.m., “in the bathroom with sick naked Gahyeon” was around #4,368,212.

She cleared her throat. “Uh, so.” It sounded weak, and she cleared her throat again. “If you want to get undressed, I’m going to grab some pajamas for you. Which ones do you want?”

“You’ll wake Dongie,” Gahyeon pointed out, and Bora scrunched up her face. True. “I could wear one of your shirts? Maybe some shorts?”

“You’re not wearing shorts when you’re sick, Gahyeon-ah.” She was still shivering, and Bora’s heart went out to her, because the bath was only going to make it worse before it made things better. “I’ll grab a shirt and pants, you get in.” The tub was half-full; Bora turned off the water before she moved to leave the bathroom, giving Gahyeon a reassuring smile over her shoulder.

When she started digging through the drawer of clothes, hoping she chose something semi-matching in the darkness of their room, she heard Yoohyeon’s sleepy voice from her bunk.

“S’going on?”

“Shh,” Bora whispered. She was too adorable, no wonder Minji was in love with her. It was kind of gross, but she couldn’t hate it if she tried. “Gahyeon’s sick. I’m taking care of it.”

A pause, and then “You? Taking care of someone?” Yoohyeon giggled.

“Don’t make me throw something at you,” Bora said, bristling. She could take care of someone. It wasn’t that hard. “Go to sleep.”

“Hm. Give her a kiss for me, unnie.”

“Everyone in this dorm is on crack,” Bora muttered to herself. Once back in the hallway she noted with some satisfaction that even if she had blindly pulled her most garish pair of plaid pants, at least the tee shirt was white, so Gahyeon wouldn’t _literally_ look like she got dressed in the dark. Bora paused outside of the bathroom, before taking a deep breath and knocking softly.

She was suddenly nervous. Bora hated being nervous.

She didn’t know what she expected to find behind the bathroom door, but Gahyeon in the tub with her knees drawn up, shivering and obviously crying, was not it. There was no momentary thrill at the idea of seeing her unclothed, and Bora would’ve berated herself at thinking that at a time like this anyway. But all she felt, looking at Gahyeon hiding herself under a curtain of long dark hair, was sadness. And the distinct idea that it was all somehow her fault.

Bora sat on the floor by the tub; her joints creaked and she was not going to be in the best shape tomorrow, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was her hand, cautiously and slowly reaching out until it came to rest, palm and fingers flat, on Gahyeon’s back. Bora felt muscles flex, tense, relax, but Gahyeon didn’t lift her head.

“Hey, hey,” Bora said, her voice still echoing in the acoustics of the room no matter how soft she tried to make it.

“What’s all this, Gahyeon-ah?”

Gahyeon just shook her head, a sound coming from her that was more whimper than it was sob, and then she coughed, and Bora could feel it under her hand. It was just a cold, Bora reasoned with herself, but she was still starting to worry.

“You don’t actually have to bathe,” she said to Gahyeon, “but you can’t sit here all hunched up. I know the water’s chilly but it’ll help. Come on, yeah?”

She kept the one hand on Gahyeon’s back while the other pressed on her knee, encouraging the younger girl to uncurl herself. Gahyeon whined again when she touched the water, and Bora hated it. If it was chilly to her she could imagine it felt like ice to Gahyeon. Stupid germs and their stupid tendency to get people sick.

“There we go,” she soothed. “You don’t have to stay in here long, I promise.”

“Bora unnie?”

“Hm?” She realized she still had the pajamas in her lap; Bora moved them over to the shelf on the nearest wall. A pair of Dami’s socks laid there forgotten as well, and Bora smiled a little, thinking of Dreamcatcher’s quietly strong rapper with the cute gap-toothed grin. She really was a master with that stick, it was kind of unreal.

She was brought quickly back to the present by Gahyeon’s voice again, impossibly tiny in the otherwise silence of the bathroom.

“Could you wash my hair, please? I feel gross.”

“You’re going to have to dunk under though,” Bora said hesitantly by way of an answer.

Gahyeon made a face but did it, coming up spluttering and with her teeth chattering. Bora touched her lightly under the chin with her hand before looking around. Handong had left one of her shampoos in the bathroom, and the sight of it momentarily made Bora’s heart clutch. She’d give Handong all the compliments tomorrow.

“I think this is strawberry,” she said, uncapping the shampoo and squirting some of it in her hand. “Anything is better than being all sweaty though. I’m sorry you’re sick.”

“I feel a little better.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s good. We have a lot of stuff to do tomorrow.”

Gahyeon wouldn’t be doing anything tomorrow, but Bora felt it was best not to mention it. She lathered up Gahyeon’s hair – how was there so much of it on someone that small? – and scratched her scalp gently. It wasn’t the first time Bora had bathed someone but this seemed to have a lot more weight to it. As if she could mess it up with just one wrong movement, or shampoo splashing into Gahyeon’s eyes. So Bora was a lot more careful than she probably needed to be, which also meant her hands lingered for more than they probably needed to.

But Gahyeon had let out a tiny sigh of contentment at the first touch of Bora’s nails against her head, and Bora told herself that she would sit there all night if she could just distract Gahyeon from how lousy being sick felt.

“You should have told us sooner that you didn’t feel well.” Her voice wasn’t accusatory, or even questioning. More of a quiet matter-of-fact, stating the obvious. Gahyeon cast her eyes down to the soapy water.

“We’re always busy. And you just said we have a lot of stuff to do.”

“When did you start listening to me?”

It made Gahyeon laugh, which made her start wheezing, which made her start coughing, and Bora drew away from her hair long enough to rub her back until the spasms stopped.

“I listen to you. You’re smarter than me.”

“I’m not the honor student.”

Bora hated just how intelligent Gahyeon was. Excellent at math, awards three years in a row. It was actually embarrassing, that they ended up somehow having one of the smartest maknaes in the business.

“Yeah, I guess not.”

Bora was finished kneading the shampoo through Gahyeon’s hair, and letting her fingers trace along the brown wavy tresses; she poked a finger gently into Gahyeon’s shoulder. “Dunk.”

Gahyeon groused a little but again did as she was told, resurfacing just to shiver even more, and Bora reached down to unstop the tub.

“Okay, the faster you’re out the faster we can get you dressed and warm.”

Gahyeon stood and Bora wrapped a towel around her shoulders; she kept her eyes strategically focused on Gahyeon’s face, which wasn’t that hard to do, because she had the sudden urge to squish those cheeks between her palms and watch them bounce back into place. As she stepped out of the tub Gahyeon stumbled, and Bora managed to only just catch her in time, holding her in place as Gahyeon’s forehead came to rest on her shoulder.

There was strawberry-scented hair tickling her nose, and Bora breathed in before burying herself a little further. Her arms tightened around Gahyeon, and Bora dared to press a kiss against her temple, which thankfully wasn’t as hot as her skin had been minutes earlier.

“Bora…”

She pulled back, rubbing her hands over Gahyeon’s trembling upper arms to warm her. “Let’s get you dried off.” Her voice strangely didn’t sound like her own. It was as if she was speaking through a megaphone to fans, except the fan was Gahyeon and Bora wasn’t sure what she ought to say.

Gahyeon mostly dried herself, and Bora was grateful for it, because even while averting her eyes she could feel how red her own cheeks were, and she prayed to all the gods and ancestors that she remembered that the other girl wouldn’t notice. Bora hated just how perfect Gahyeon’s body was. Not chubby, not fat. Just perfect. It was kind of insulting, really.

Bora helped tug her pants over Gahyeon’s hips (and she didn’t swallow hard as her knuckles slid over the curves, not at all) and then the shirt over her head. They weren’t that much different in size, but somehow Gahyeon looked comically cute in Bora’s clothes, and it made her smile. Gahyeon’s eyes were half-closed, the cold medicine making her sleepy.

“Okay, _aga_ ,” Bora said, taking her hand and pulling her into the hallway towards her and Dongie’s room. “I’ll get you tucked in and bring that tea.”

But Gahyeon resisted, forcing them both to a stop outside her room. “I’ll keep Dong up coughing. I should just sleep in the living room.”

“Your bed will be a lot more comfortable than the couch. And Dongie won’t mind.”

“But I will,” Gahyeon said stubbornly, and Bora sighed at the set pout on her face. Somehow Gahyeon was even more of a whiny baby when she was sick.

“Okay fine. Go sit on the couch and I’ll get some pillows and blankets.”

She only realized that she’d need them herself when she was pulling the blankets and pillows off her _own_ bed, and by then Yoohyeon was once again speaking up sleepily from across the room.

“Is she feeling better?”

“A little. I think the fever broke.”

“Hmm, that’s good. Give her another kiss for me.”

“Do you all think I just go around giving Gahyeon kisses?”

“Huh-uh.”

“I was gonna say—”

“That’s the problem.”

“What?” Bora stared, as if she could see Yoohyeon’s outline in the darkness.

“Y’don’t give her kisses.”

“You’re all delirious,” Bora huffed, taking care not to slam the door closed with her foot, because her arms were full of bedding for Gahyeon.

The baby of Dreamcatcher was asleep sitting up on the couch, her head lolling onto her shoulder, and Bora tried not to coo over it. If Siyeon could see her now, stood in the middle of the living room making heart-eyes at Lee Gahyeon, Bora would never hear the end of it. She didn’t think she’d mind though; she might not hate Siyeon’s teasing as much as she made out.

Bora dropped the blankets and pillows onto one of the chairs, then gently shook Gahyeon’s shoulder. “Come on, honey,” she said.

Gahyeon grumbled and slapped out at her hand, making Bora laugh.

“Yeah, I know, you’re sleepy and you don’t feel good. But I have to tuck you in, so you’re going to have to get up for just a minute.”

The tea could wait until in the morning, Bora decided. If Gahyeon was already falling asleep her throat couldn’t be hurting too much, anyway. She’d get up early, or… She checked her watch, the numbers faintly glowing. Three a.m. She’d stay up and fix Gahyeon breakfast. Tea and perhaps some soft egg, that would be easy enough for her to swallow. She’d have to make sure Gahyeon took more cold medicine, too.

Gahyeon got up off the couch only to throw herself on the exact same chair with the pillows and blankets, and it took all of Bora’s restraint not to grab her phone and take a picture while cursing her luck. With some tugging and more grumbling from Gahyeon Bora managed to wrest the bedding from the chair to the couch, making some sort of relatively comfortable bed, and she nodded to herself.

It'd do for a few hours anyway.

“Climb in,” she said to Gahyeon. “You can pretend it’s a sleep over.”

Gahyeon smiled and Bora’s heart fluttered. Yeah, she really… hated… that smile. So bright and unassuming, directed at her. Yuck.

“Are you sure we’ll both fit?”

“Ah, I- what?” Bora blinked stupidly. Maybe there was something in Handong’s shampoo that had muddled her brain.

“Go to sleep, Gahyeon-ah. I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

Her lower lip trembled and Bora once again clawed at her face and eyes with her fingers; her hate for Gahyeon was going to be the death of her, honestly.

“You _really_ expect me to sleep on the couch with you?”

Gahyeon shrugged. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Bora said reluctantly, turning to go. “As long as you’ll be okay, I’ll just—”

“I didn’t expect you to, I just hoped that… but I know you hate me.”

Something bloomed in Bora’s chest, revulsion mixed with regret and just a spark of understanding. Confronted with what she’d long thought, she looked back at Gahyeon and realized she had no choice. She remembered someone, a teacher maybe, once saying “The truth will out,” and she supposed there it was, then. The truth.

Only she stalked over to the couch and laid down, wiggling until she was comfortable and her head was on more pillows than she ever knew was possible, before she reached to grab the waistband of Gahyeon’s – her own – pants and pull her in and down. Gahyeon collapsed rather unceremoniously on top of Bora and headbutted her chin in the process; Bora grunted and shifted until she was comfortable again and Gahyeon’s soft weight was evenly distributed.

She was far too conscious of Gahyeon’s face pressed against her neck, and the fact that her neck was wet. In that moment, Bora hated herself.

She pulled the blankets over them, taking care to leave Gahyeon’s top half exposed so that the fever wouldn’t have an invitation to creep back up. Bora stretched her legs out, wrapped her arms around Gahyeon, and finally spoke into the darkness of the room.

“I don’t hate you, Gahyeon,” she said quietly. “I- I don’t…” She trailed off, and closed her eyes briefly.

_The truth will out_.

“I’m not sure what I’m feeling, but it’s definitely not hatred.”

Gahyeon pushed herself up so she could look at Bora. She could see Gahyeon’s eyes shining in the moonlight, wet and more hopeful than Bora thought she’d ever deserve.

“Really? You promise?”

This time, Bora did poke her cheeks, cupping Gahyeon’s face in her hands and pushing in with her thumbs until Gahyeon pursed her lips. Bora laughed, a chuckle deep and low almost like a cough, and she kissed her.

Lips against lips, fleeting, a split second in time that seemed to stretch before them long and untroubled. Bora didn’t want to get any sicker than she already would be sharing the same air with Gahyeon so it wasn’t the kiss she wanted it to be, more of a gentle brush than anything. But she heard Gahyeon’s tiny intake of breath at the contact, and Bora figured it could be enough, for now.

If she was terrified that this was the wrong thing to do, Gahyeon put her at ease instantly by snuggling her face deeper into Bora’s neck, her hand finding one of Bora’s and linking their fingers together. Bora closed her eyes.

God, she really _did not hate_ Lee Gahyeon.

“I promise.”


End file.
